While the weather is a whole lot warmer in Texas, that deep freeze that caused so many problems in February the state experienced is going to have residual impacts that are going to be felt by people all over the world. 

The historic cold snap forced chemical plants to shutdown, which is now starting to disrupt global supply chains and causing a shortage of raw materials needed to make important items like smartphones and medical face shields. 

The world’s largest petrochemical complex is located in Texas, and the cold snap that wreaked havoc on numerous states in the south actually caused more petrochemical plants to shut down than Hurricane Harvey back in 2017. 

Get this, over a month later many are still offline, and there is no clear timetable on when they will return to operation. 

That means the the prices for polyethylene, polypropylene and several other chemical products have skyrocketed.  These are chemicals that make critical auto parts and computers. 

Polyvinyl chloride is more commonly known as PVC, and anyone in the construction business who relies on that has seen prices double since last year. 

So, a number of industries are going to see major delays and cost increases. Those most affected will be home builders and car manufacturers. 

This is just one area that the big winter storms in Texas affected manufacturing all over the globe. There is also a world-wide semiconductor shortage because one third of the natural-gas production in Texas was knocked out. 

 

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